Here is a new Romanian film that completely deviates from the style and theme of the already quite exhausted Romanian new wave. “The Father Who Moves Mountains” or sympathetically in the original “Tata muta muntii” is an exciting combination of thriller and drama that owes even more to Hollywood and European genre film than is a typical offshoot of Romanian cinema. And it is not surprising that this Romanian film was bought by Netflix, although at its core it is actually a kind of coward’s egg for a typical Netflix audience accustomed to mostly superficial, empty, often completely stupid content.
It all starts there when two teenagers get lost in the mountains. It is winter, the snow is knee-deep, and they have set out on a path that is normally only possible during the summer and all trace of them has been lost. When the news of his son’s disappearance reached his father, Mircee (Adrian Titieni, best remembered from Mungiu’s “Matura”, but this extremely busy and recognizable Romanian actor shoots big), the mountain rescue service had practically given up. Mircea, a circus type 55, maybe 60 years old, we find out in the introductory scenes, has a new young wife and is expecting a new child, will arrive at the foot of the mountain and start working pressure to continue the search. We quickly realize that he is obviously not anyone, but a powerful guy with strong connections and influence, who was once in the secret services, and although he is now retired, he is still the type to be listened to.
If Mircea tells the seekers that they have to move the mountains to find his son, he expects them to do so, but he doesn’t seem to realize that in this case he’s not in charge of solving the problem, he’s more of a nuisance. He is constantly interfering in the work of seekers, organizing a parallel search team through his connections, doing what everyone in his position and his connections would probably do. But, although “Tata muta muntii” is in principle a dynamic and exciting thriller, at its core it is an interesting character study that has certain problems, but it is still a film that certainly deserves a passing rating. And this is primarily thanks to the great Titieni (but also the convincing rest of the cast) because his character or Mircea seems to understand that he does all this because deep down he knows that he was never a good father to his son.
By frantically searching and saving his son’s life it is as if he is trying to make up for all the bad things he once did and all the things he caused with his obviously egocentric lifestyle. We see that he has a new wife and a new child is coming soon, and he seems to have forgotten about the old one, and the question is when and if he would have remembered the “old” son if this accident had not happened. After presenting himself with a really great debut film “One Step Behind the Seraphim” a few years ago, in my opinion and the best Romanian film of the last few years, Daniel Sandu continues to make quality and interesting films and stands out as one of the most interesting authors of the younger generation. both stylistically and thematically deviate from the vast majority of what is filmed in that country.
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